The Birthday Recap

[mousme]

It has been All Birthday, All The Time at Casa mousme this week. We started with a wee celebration on Monday because I wouldn't be there for Bean's actual birthday on Wednesday. Then Bean had a special birthday celebration at school on Wednesday, complete with Monster High-themed cupcakes, and received some presents from pdaughter as well.

On Thursday when I got home he was already excited about his party, and got out of bed when I got home in order to tell me about it some more (as well as complain that he was thirsty, ask to go to the bathroom, the usual bedtime stalling tactics). It took a little doing, but he finally fell asleep.

On Friday pdaughter and I set up the decorations for the party. I glued and cut out a Monster High bingo game and she put together 90% of the birthday cake. We moved the furniture around, put up streamers and ribbons and some things with Monster High pictures on them whose name I don't know. They were like posters only made out of crinkly plastic. *shrug* Either way, the place looked really great when we were done (supposing you're into Monster High stuff). pdaughter also got really big Mylar balloons for the party, and the dog was NOT impressed. He calmed down a bit after they were separated into smaller bunches, but when she first brought them into the house he backed up as far as he could, and proceeded to eye the balloons askance for the rest of the day. He wouldn't walk past them, and since his bed was beyond the balloons I needed to escort him safely past them in order to get him to lie down.

Poor doggie, his life is a trial. ;)

Bean was SUPER excited when he got home. He was delighted by the decorations, and ran around the whole house flinging himself onto the furniture in what might, to the untrained eye, appear to be a determined attempt to injure/maim/kill himself but was in fact only his way of appreciating the decorations. He snatched all the cups and plates and cutlery off the table in order to look at it, crawled under the table, and nearly broke the disco ball pdaughter had bought for the party. In short, he was thrilled.

(As an aside, George the cat was also thrilled with the decorations, and had to be dissuaded on numerous occasions from playing with the shiny dangly things.)

Bean continued to be thrilled for the rest of the evening, which made bedtime rather difficult. He seemed okay until it was time to tidy up toys and start the bedtime routine. He screamed and threw part of his wooden train set at me so hard that I now am sporting a bruise on my hand larger than a twooney. The swelling has gone down, at least, but it still hurts. I should point out that he didn't throw it at me at me--I just happened to be at Ground Zero when he flung said toy out of frustration. He got a time out, and after that things went better. He helped tidy the rest of the toys, did bathroom/toothbrushing/pyjamas with minimal fuss, and then we read La Parade de Pacques together before bed.

After that, things got a little hairy again. Bean was basically so wound up with excitement about the party that he kept himself awake, chattering and bouncing and singing until 22:00. When pdaughter went in to check on him right before bed, he bounced up immediately. "It my party now?"

*ded*

So this morning he was up shortly after 06:00. Usually he stumbles blearily out of his room, but this morning he came tearing out at full speed and sprinted to the kitchen. "I'M SO EXCITED!"

There was a lot of last-minute prep to do, including a quick run to the dollar store and back for me while pdaughter made parfaits and put the finishing touches on the cake, and at 10:00 the guests started showing up.

Not surprisingly, the party was a success. Everyone was super impressed with the cake (as they should be!). I haven't put the pictures on the computer yet but I will as soon as I can manage. The cake was gorgeous, and more than a few parents thought it had been professionally done. "You must have a great bakery!" "No, we have a great baker!"

The kids were mostly from Bean's daycare, with two family friends who will always have standing invitations to birthday parties. I can't even use the kids' initials to differentiate between them for the purposes of this post, because literally all the kids except for two had names beginning with 'A'. It's like people WANT me to be confused! :P The kids all pretty much immediately made friends, including one of the boys who not only gave hugs to all the kids and all the adults, but also immediately glomped the dog AND George the cat. He was adorable and hilarious.

There was the usual frenetic activity that always accompanies the parties of small children, perhaps a bit moreso than some because all of Bean's classmates are high-energy kids. There were the usual small dramas of toys not being shared, kids tripping on each other and flailing and rushing around that resulted in tears and indignation all around, but overall the children all had a blast. Parents intervened when necessary, but as a rule all the children got along and played with the toys in Bean's room. pdaughter played Monster High Bingo with them, and then we had a brief game of Freeze Dance that went over like gangbusters.

Then there was cake and opening presents, and Bean got even more excited, which I didn't think was possible. We couldn't get him to stay on his chair for cake (I would sit him down and he'd literally pop right back up) for the longest time until he figured out that if he sat still, there would be cake in it for him. Then he decided that he didn't want cake after all (don't look at me, I got nothing), but he did spend most of the party helping himself to sour gummy worms and dipping them enthusiastically into the hummus. Again, I got nothing. He seemed to really enjoy that particular combination, though, so whatever. The enjoyment is the main thing, am I right?

By the time everyone left and we got things cleaned up it was time for me to head back to work. I did get to play one round of Hungry, Hungry Hippos before I left, and I think it was the first time in my life that I actually won at that game. I felt a little bad because I hadn't really been trying very hard, and I think Bean was disappointed that he didn't win. He kept trying to grab the marbles with his fingers, which is a terrible idea for that game. He decided after that that he was going to "practice" playing "by my own!" so we left him to it. The Mouse Trap game was also a big success, but the present highlight of the day was definitely the Iron Man costume from toughlovemuse, which got clutched to his chest and then held over his head in pure glee.

I will try to get pictures uploaded ASAP. I left for work after helping with some of the post-party tidying. I drove directly to Ottawa and arrived about half an hour too early for work. So I hung out at Tim Horton's and took advantage of the free wifi until it was time to head over here. Luckily work has been very quiet tonight, because I am so tired that I want nothing more than to curl up in a ball and never move again. It's taken me forever just to write up this post, because I can't focus for sh*t.

It was a good day, though. No regrets at all, even if I'm going to get next to no sleep this weekend. I have an appointment tomorrow morning at 08:00, which means I'll probably have to nap in the car beforehand if I don't want to have spend 26 hours with no sleep after helping with a kid's birthday party for the morning, driving for two hours, and then spending 12 hours working after that.

Comments

[sorceror.livejournal.com]

HTML failure!

" pdaughterHungry, Hungry Hippos before I left, and I think it was the first time in my life that I actually won at that game."

I'm pretty sure there a few words & some punctuation missing there. :-)

[mousme.livejournal.com]

It was an html tag that was improperly closed. Fixed it. :)

[sorceror.livejournal.com]

Also: Happy Birthday, Bean! :-D